


The Naming of Cats

by LuckyDiceKirby



Category: Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Siblings, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 20:58:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1832059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyDiceKirby/pseuds/LuckyDiceKirby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The marquis, naming and creating himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Naming of Cats

**Author's Note:**

> This fic involves a lot of discussion of a character and some details only mentioned in _How the Marquis Got His Coat Back_ , which is included in the short story collection _Rogues_. It’s a really, really good story, and I would highly recommend reading it if you haven’t already (and then talking to me about it). Honestly, I think it’s worth the price of the book just by itself, although I have really been enjoying the others stories in the collection as well.
> 
> Alright, now that I’m done with that little ad, please enjoy this story about the marquis de Carabas being trans.

_But above and beyond there's still one name left over,_  
 _And that is the name that you never will guess;_  
 _The name that no human research can discover--_  
 _But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess._  
 _When you notice a cat in profound meditation,_  
 _The reason, I tell you, is always the same:_  
 _His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation_  
 _Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name._

\-- _The Naming of Cats_ , T.S. Eliot

  


You grow up surrounded by stories and books and the magic contained therein, long before the very practical realities of magic are at all clear to you. Your brother reads to you every night, working methodically through the library of your grand, dusty, and abandoned old home.

You have no idea whether or not the home you live in used to belong to your parents or not. It certainly belonged to someone who is not you or your brother; the books do not belong to you, nor the furniture, nor the extravagant clothing and jewelry stuffed into every closet. 

Ownership, of course, is a matter of great relativity. The grand house belongs to you in the sense that you come home to it almost every night, and doing so makes you feel safe, and that is the only sense that matters. 

In that sense, also, all the dusty piles of books tossed carelessly into corners and over tables are yours, as well. Everything about them, from the smell of the binding to the ink of the words crossing the pages, reminds you that you are safe.

Collecting stories is a bit of a hobby of yours. It starts with the stories your brother reads out to you, full of his dramatic flourishes and charismatic voices, and creeps into the piles of books that you slowly make your way through and keep piled beside your bed. Stories tell you everything you need to know about the world and about how to act, because all anyone really wants is to tell, or to be told a story about themselves.

Your brother is like a story all unto himself, and you love him and hate him for it, because no matter how good you are, no matter how grand a story you become, you will never, not ever, be able to hold a candle to him. 

You are tall and gangly and beginning to have a noticeable chest when your brother takes the name Peregrine.

“It’s a hunter’s name, you see,” he says, “a name to make people fear and watch their backs, wary of a sharp beak.” 

No one fears you, the tall girl always trailing in your brother’s shadow.

“That’s because they don’t know who you are,” you brother says, and you hate that he says it, because he’s right, the way that he’s always right. 

No one else knows who you are, Peregrine’s young sister, and you don’t know who you are either.

Stories know who they are. Stories are defined by black marks on a page or hushed whispers around fires, and you want to be like that—you want to be solid, defined, _known_.

You want to know who you are, and then you want everyone else to know, too.

First you must start with what you are not, because that is a list that runs as long and as far as the tunnels of the London Below. You are not weak, although you think that your brother may be the only one who knows. You are not someone who is only defined by your relation to your brother—when people call you “Peregrine’s sister” and nothing more, you grind your teeth until they ache. 

And there is the other thing about those words—you are beginning to suspect that you are not a girl at all.

You try on “woman” and it feels even worse, like a vice closing around your neck, and then next is “boy”, tentative, and that’s a little better. Finally you try on “man”, and it feels like a new pair of very nice leather boots—still a little stiff, but you know that in time, it will become well worn and fit comfortably, like you’ve owned it all your life.

That is where you start in constructing the list of things you _are_ , the list of things which make up the you which you have not yet found a proper name for.

You are clever, and you are good at bending the truth, at twisting words and commanding them to do your bidding, and you can twist a knife as well as you know how to twist words; those are all parts of what make you, but they are also all parts of what make your brother, of what make the man he calls Peregrine. 

You suppose that this is something that is completely your own—you would laugh if your brother has ever once envied you.

You start trying on names, pulling them from dusty tomes you pile onto the shelf beside your bed. Ishmael feels like cotton in your mouth, Dante too sharp, like it will cut you to pieces, Aeneas like a bad omen. Janos is close, but you don’t think that two faces are quite enough.

You say them all aloud, in front of the smudged mirror in your room, testing how they fit between your lips. You like the way Pollux sounds in your mouth, but the idea of being reduced to just a brother, to just a part of a pair, is not any better than being labeled your brother’s sister was.

This is the problem: every name you find already has its own story attached to it, both a blessing and a curse; it gives you a mold to fit yourself into, but the mold never seems to fit just right. You end up thinking of the name as something you’ll need to live up to, and that isn’t right at all. The name must be able to live up to _you_. 

You need a name you can own, not steal, as you have begun to steal so many other things; you need a name that makes you feel safe, a name to come home to. 

At the Market, you buy bandages for your chest, and all your brother says when he finds them is that he’s sure that can’t be healthy to use every day. He understands what they’re for, of course, without being told, because your brother is infuriatingly perceptive, and you’ve never been able to keep anything from him. You ignore his advice until a few days later, when he leaves a shirt that works just as well and lets you breathe much easier on your bed, and you are so helplessly annoyed that you almost don’t wear it.

In the end, you like it too much to refuse. You do not thank him for the gift. 

You have taken to exploring the grand home your share with your brother, searching for new books to pilfer names from.

One day, you find a coat.

It is the most magnificent thing you have ever seen. It is huge and gaudy, and has more pockets than you can count. You have never seen anyone else wear anything like it. 

You find it stuffed under an ancient copy of _Puss in Boots_. Fate, to you, is a laughable concept, but you do believe in seizing opportunities as they come.

You take both book and coat down to your room, and begin to read. You’ve read the book before, both on your own and in your brother’s voice, but you read it again, running your fingers over the familiar pictures and words. You enjoy the story immensely, as you always have, and you realize that what you need is a name with a changeable story, a name that is really only a façade, because even now you are beginning to learn that all the world really wants are lies, and you are all too willing to oblige.

Stories become real in their telling. That is what you want: a name that is a story yet untold, one that you can create for yourself.

You are very good at telling lies; it seems only fitting that you should take on for your name. The marquis de Carabas will do very nicely, you think. It fits in your mouth smooth and sharp, like very good wine, whichever way you pronounce it, and you like the man you see in your mind when you say it.

And cats, you cannot help but think, are excellent when it comes to hunting birds. 

Newly named, you put on the coat, and stare at your own face, blurry in the mirror.

_The marquis de Carabas_ , you think, looking at the man looking back at you in the mirror, magnificent in his coat. You grin like you know something the rest of the world does not, and in that moment, you do.

The coat is yours, from then on, and nothing in the world, not your grand home or your dusty books or your infuriating brother, has ever made you feel safer.

Your brother, with his annoyingly good sense of dramatic timing, chooses that moment to come looking for you.

“Nice coat,” he says, as you turn your grin on him.

“I know what I’d like to be called,” you say, voice sounding more like yourself than it ever has, strong and clear.

“And that is?” your brother asks.

You tell him.

“I like it. I’ve never heard of a girl marquis,” he says, like a question.

“No,” you say. “Neither have I,” and from that day on, from the moment you put on that coat, you are no one but the marquis de Carabas, a lie from a fairytale, a man who knows who he is and who grins at the world like he has a secret.

**Author's Note:**

> if you want to cry about the marquis de Carabas, please feel free to do so on [tumblr](http://luckydicekirby.tumblr.com).


End file.
